Rep. Bill Pascrell: 'Protect soldier's heads'

For the past decade, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8th Dist.) has made it his legislative mission to protect American brains. Last year, he sponsored a bill to create a national policy on student-athlete concussions. This year, he is sponsoring a bill to demand stricter helmet standards for youth football leagues.

And for the past several years, Pascrell has crusaded for better helmets, improved armored vehicles and state-of-the-art neurological testing for troops serving in, and returning from, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Head trauma is the No. 1 injury suffered by vets,” Pascrell says. “Twenty percent of vets suffer some kind of concussion, which is a brain injury. And yet we’re treating so few of them. We have to do better.”

Pascrell spoke to Kevin Manahan of The Star-Ledger editorial board recently about the nation’s treatment of brain-injured vets:

Q. When we think about war injuries, we think about limb loss, because that receives a lot of media attention. Why are we neglecting head injuries if they’re so prevalent?

A. There are several reasons. Concussions are not always obvious. For many of them, there’s no blood involved. And soldiers, like athletes, don’t like to admit they’ve been hurt. Just like a football player wants to get back into the game, soldiers want to get back to their units.

War has changed. With IEDs and other weapons, brain trauma has become the signature injury of our wars. Some of us in Congress asked the military, “What are you doing about this?” We were shocked to discover the answer was very little.

Q. Explain the shortcomings.
A. In a pilot program, we tested 550,000 soldiers as they entered the war — with an intensive psychological and neurological exam. The idea was to establish a baseline and test vets when they left duty to determine if they had been injured and, if so, how badly. Recently, I discovered the military had tested only 2,000 on the way out. Many were given a multiple-choice survey. That’s ridiculous. Soldiers need and deserve the best testing they can get.

It was discouraging to find out the military had decided neurological tests were not reliable. I went ballistic. Some people were removed from their jobs. We’re back on the right course.

Q. Why are insurance companies fighting the tests?
A. They say many cognitive treatments are experimental and not proven. Yes, it’s new ground, but medical experts say cognitive treatments help. Insurance companies will cover only certain things, then when the care gets more complicated or expensive, we have to consult. I say, “What the hell do you mean this isn’t covered? These are veterans.”

Look, doctors aren’t inventing people with head injuries. Vets are coming to them with serious symptoms. Some symptoms, though, don’t show up for years after they’ve been discharged.

Q. Your investigations show that a lot of these don’t get reported either. Why?
A. Because we have people in denial — either it’s the military, which denies these head injuries exist, or the soldier, who believes he or she is tough enough to overcome them, that there’s nothing wrong with them.

All we can do is stay on the military’s back. We prepare people to go to war.
We have to prepare them to come out, too.